It was the pre-Christian Chinese social philosopher Confucius (551BC-479BC) who said, ¨choose a job you like and you will never work a day in your life.¨ So although we may imagine the desire for job satisfaction to be a modern concern it would seem it was on mankind’s radar far before Maslow ever formulated his hierarchy of needs or the Myers-Briggs test was formulated.
We spend more time with the people we work with and doing our jobs than any other activity so it is not hard to understand why the pursuit of a career which challenges us, fulfils us and financially recompenses us is of such importance to our quality of life.
So where can we start looking for the Holy Grail that is the job that doesn’t feel like work? The job that is right for you.
Socrates lauded the virtues of self-knowledge. Lao Tzu said that ‘mastering others was strength but mastering yourself was true power’. Polonius famous advice to his son Laertes in Hamlet is “This above all: to thine own self be true” (I, iii, 78).
So how do we go about knowing ourselves, realising where our talents lie and being true to ourselves in the modern world?
This one of the most powerful questions we can ask ourselves and it can also be one of the most difficult to answer.
There are many psychological tests available which see to determine what types of personality type we have and what values we hold. You can take the aforementioned Myers-Briggs test here.
Other people choose to go to career coaches to seek professional guidance and let’s face it if it helps in understanding yourself and finding the perfect job it would be money well spent.
Nevertheless as an introduction to understanding your own personal value system there are some simpler and cheaper alternatives to start off with.
1. Adopt a beginner’s mindset:
Try to look at yourself anew. The person you are now may be different from who you were five, three or even one year ago. You may have had some new life experience: positive or negative which has changed your perception of the world. Either way work with who you are now.
2. Try to clear your mind:
Take some deep breaths and adopt a regular breathing pattern. Try to empty your mind of outward thoughts. If you practice any form of meditation that would be ideal to draw upon.
3. Ask yourself the big questions
What you should look for are the answers that repeat. The talents that keep suggesting themselves and are in keeping with the lifestyle you envision for yourself. They are asking to be used.
4. Peaks and troughs
First consider the peak experiences of your life. Moments when you felt truly fulfilled, alive and that you were working on your purpose. Ask yourself:
And then turn it on its head and ask yourself the same questions related to one of the moments in your life when you felt least satisfied with yourself and least comfortable in your own clothes.
5. Personal morals
What would you not be comfortable doing to advance your career? What would you not be comfortable doing to earn money? If you knew your company had some questionable human rights practices which you were not personally responsible would that trouble you? Would you like a career which focused on helping others or would you prefer to provide for yourself primarily?
Again there are many questions we can ask ourselves in an attempt to understand what type of industry we might fit into but remember, ‘To thine ownself be true’, go deep and answer those questions as honestly as you can.
Far from the realities of a challenging classroom you might like the idea of helping young people reach their potential but if it’s not really true you will do yourself and those children a disservice if you do not really possess the necessary vocation for such a challenging job.
Likewise you will never truly be satisfied working in a large petrol company if you have a true desire to help the environment even if the pay and the status it offers are very attractive to you.
The concept of Flow, also colloquially known as being ´in the zone´, was first named by the Hungarian-American psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and describes a mental state of complete absorption in a task where the doer is mentally alert and fully enjoying the task at hand. You can read more about the concept of flow here.
So what does the concept have to do with you finding the perfect job? Well I hope everyone reading this has experienced this feeling at some stage in their lives. Whether it was playing a sport, fixing a bicycle or solving an equation in maths class. The thing is the experience of flow can be a very strong indicator of where our joy and talents may lie.
If you look back at past experiences when you felt this feeling. Try to do it from the point of view of a useful task you were doing as opposed to socialising with friends. You may well notice a connection between the times you achieved this state and the task you were doing at the time.
For example perhaps you felt it most when engaged in artistic pursuits, perhaps when completing numerical tasks or writing. Perhaps you did not have the best academic record but found yourself getting lost in the task of trying to fix old electrical equipment. All of these are powerful indicators of where your best future may lie. So think about them. Match them to the talents you were using at the time and then think about what careers require those skills.
Of course some skills such as numeracy, creativity and technology are quite linear indicators of where your future direction may be. However there exists many other less obvious sources of flow that also have marketable value.
Are you the friend that people call when they need to confide in someone and do you enjoy helping them? Perhaps your future lies in counselling.
Do you have the ability to deliver uncomfortable news in such a way that people accept it? That’s a skill diplomats need to develop if they do not have it naturally.
The clues that tell us where our future lies are sometimes more hidden than others.
So go deep. Reflect. Investigate.
None of us are perfect and we do not live in a perfect world. So therefore neither does the perfect job. What we are looking for however is a job which aligns with who we are morally, makes use of our talents and provides with a degree of remuneration which permits us to live a comfortable lifestyle.
So reflect on where your talents lie and try to adapt them to the world we live in.
Be diligent. Be patient and, most of all, be you.
Written for CareerJunction by Mark Dempsey.
